This invention relates in general to purse seine links for fishing nets and more particular to a swivel, roller head purse seine link.
In the past, it has been the conventional practice to employ a traveling eyelet in connection with movably supporting the marginal edge of a fishing net to a length of rigid support cable. The eyelets are used in serial fashion adjacent to one another. Each eyelet is connected to a portion of the fishing net so that all of the eyelets in combination support the entire fishing net. Floats are provided on the edge of the net so that the net is supported on the surface of the sea. The eyelets are primarily employed for supporting the net as the net is payed out from the stern of a boat or drawn back into the boat over its stern. Under such operating conditions, great wear and strain is placed on the eyelets due to the extremely heavy loading conditions and transferring as well as distribution of loads from the net to the supporting cable via the eyelets.
It has been the conventional practice to design an eyelet having a rigid cross member joining opposite sides of the eyelet at the upper end and providing a rounded bight at its lower end. The rigid cross member in combination with the top or upper end of the eyelet forms an opening through which the lower or pursing cable is disposed, and the cable rides on the eyelet frame itself, and in some instances, will ride against the rigid crossbar. A pursing cable is tied or laid against the semicircular rigid lower end of the frame of the eyelet. Using such a conventional eyelet causes extreme wear and strain on the eyelet since no parts of the eyelet move and the material of the eyelet is substantially fatigued so as to cause cracking, breaking and damage not only to the eyelet but to the pursing cable as well. Since there are no moving parts on the eyelet, lubricant such as greases and oils are manually placed on the external surfaces of the rigid bar as well as the curved lower portion or end in order to permit sliding of the cables they are against. However, the grease or oil is soon dissipated and metal to metal wearing takes place.
Therefore, a long standing need has existed to provide a novel traveling eyelet which includes antifriction means for reducing wear and damage between metal parts on which the eyelet is supported. Such an eyelet will have lubricating means and will include a construction permitting disassembly so that worn or damaged parts can be readily replaced.
Prior art attempts to solve this problem as shown in Jang et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,119,735, have met with limited success. Jang et al. shows a roller which reduces wear previously found on the traveling eyelets. In addition, the cable could be removed by a retractable sleeve used to insert and remove the cable. While this is an improvement over the prior art, this has some problems. The removal of the link from the cable requires a five step process. A detent must be pressed, the sleeve slid back, the sleeve member pivoted out of the way, and the cable removed. The link then must be manually closed. This five step operation requires additional time which can be costly due to the warm temperature of the waters and the need to get the fish into the fish holding tanks as soon as possible. Additionally, it is a labor intensive operation because the detent must be pressed by hand. An additional problem is if the link accidentally opens during the net streaming operation, the open purse seine link acts like a fishing hook ripping large sections of the net. The fishing boat is then out of operation until the net can be repaired. A net with a large gap allows fish to escape reducing the yield, net set, plus the time to repair the net.
Another problem with the prior art is when the purse seine link is removed from the purse cable the tension of the net must be taken off the link prior to removing the link from the cable by hand. There is a danger to the operator at this point. If the mechanism to remove the strain from the net becomes temporarily disengaged, the operator could be injured while removing the link from the cable.
The operator, after he disconnects the link from the cable, takes the link and places it on a hook which is on the davit. If the link is not properly placed onto the hook, as the net is being pulled into the boat, the link can slip off the hook and hit the operator. In addition, when the link is put on the davit, the mechanism which relieves the strain from the net is disengaged from the net applying strain to the purse seine link. If the link is improperly hooked on to the davit, the removal of the strain support mechanism can cause the link to slip off the hook and can cause bodily damage to the davit operator.